Synagogue

Sargent’s personified Synagogue, her body modeled on various works by Michelangelo (including his popular sculpture of Moses and the Sistine Chapel image of the Cumaean Sibyl), shows a powerful but aged blindfolded figure among temple ruins. Her crown falls from her head and she clutches to herself the stone tablets of the law, a broken scepter, and the temple veil with its design of winged cherubim.